“That’s weird.” I glanced up at Talia. “Which one do you think is correct?”
“I’m gonna go with whatever’s on the venue’s official webpage.”
“Me too. Does Summer like you?”
“I think so? She always invites me to her parties when I talk to her. But I think she invites everyone to her parties…”
I doubted that. She’d invited me to one, so far, and since I hadn’t been able to make it, I hadn’t received another invite. Yet.
“Can you message her?” I said. “Ask her about the show.”
Talia pulled out her phone and wrote a text. “What if she doesn’t answer—?”
Ding. Talia’s phone chimed with an incoming message before she’d even finished talking.
She stared at her phone, beaming. “Hey. DJ Summer just messaged me.”
“Imagine that.”
“She says, Hi hon.”
Ding.
“Now she says, Spyyder bailed on the show. Promoter trying to pull out. And a really sad face emoji.”
Ding.
“She’s at the Artemis Club tonight,” Talia informed me, turning her phone toward me, showing me the message Summer had just sent her. “She’s on at eleven. Just sayin’.” She grinned at me.
I grinned back. “I knew there was a reason I kept you around all this time…” I was already searching the promoter on the Pandora Ballroom’s New Year’s Eve event, the gears in my head whirling. “Okay, hear me out on this. What if we buy the other promoter out? I mean, I’ll buy him out. Pay him off to get him to hand the party over to us. He’s based in Chicago, just like Spyyder, which is probably why he wants out of the show. It’s not worth it for him to deal with this show in Vancouver if Spyyder’s not on the bill. They’re probably friends.”
“Right…”
“We talk to the venue, let them know we’re on it. Then we get rid of the smaller DJs, book them out to other events that night. Instead, we book in a smaller band, someone hot, to open for Dirty. And…” I looked at her hopefully. “I give you the other New Year’s Eve party, the one we were gonna do together?”
Talia’s eyes kinda widened; the thrill of running her own event. She hadn’t done that yet. “You can try that,” she said, “but you probably won’t end up making much money on your event. Depending how much you have to pay the other promoter.”
My phone buzzed. It was Taze, at the front door of my building.
I sighed and buzzed him up.
“I don’t really care about making money on this one,” I told Talia, realizing it was true. “I just want Dirty to be happy.”
Jude.
Jude was in my head when those words came out of my mouth.
Which meant… Was I hoping to make him happy with this?
Was I hoping to make him happy with me?
Was that what this was really all about? Looking good in front of Jude?
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“And what about Summer?” Talia asked as I got up to unlock the door for Taze.
“Let me work on it.” She was getting to her feet, and I told her, “You don’t have to go.”
“I really do.” As she was packing up her laptop, Taze walked in. “I would hit the Artemis with you later but, I’m not gonna lie, I’ve got a super hot date with a pile of books. Got a paper due Monday.”
“No worries.” I hugged her. “Thank you.” Besides working with me and Dirty and several other bands around town, Talia was in school. The girl was only twenty-two and definitely going places.
Frankly, I was just hoping she’d hire me when she got there.
Taze slung his arm around me and kissed my neck as Talia picked up her purse, which was pretty much at his feet. “Hey, Tal,” he said, in his lazy, overly-familiar way, even though he barely knew her. He also looked her over in an overly-familiar way, though honestly that was how Taze looked at anyone with breasts. Especially anyone as pretty as Talia.
“Hey, Taze,” she said, politely. Then to me she said, “Call me,” and left.
Taze shut the door behind her. “The Artemis?”
“Yeah. I think I’m gonna head down there tonight.”
“Yeah?” He backed me up against the wall. “You thinking about inviting me?”
“To the Artemis? It’s not really your scene, Taze.”
He kissed me and I let him, for a minute. Then I planted a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed him off a bit. “I’m working, okay? I have some calls to make.”
“Uh-huh.” He slid his hand up my shirt and inside my bra. “But first, why don’t we finish what we started this morning…”
“I don’t have time.”
“You don’t have time for dick?” He kissed my throat and squeezed my breast. “Since when?”
“Since I have to work tonight.”
“You can work. After.”
Right. We fucked, then he got to leave.
Convenient.
And I possibly missed my chance to talk to Summer tonight.
I extracted his hand and pushed him off. “So, let’s see… When you need to work, it’s all, ‘I gotta pull out, babe,’ and when I have to work you’re all up in my bra?”
He pulled back. “What, you want me to go?”
“I never asked you to come over, Taze. I don’t have time to service the needs of your dick right now. I’m working.”
“It’s Saturday night, babe.”
“Yeah. And sometimes I work on Saturday night. Since when is this news to you?”
I really couldn’t say why that pissed him off like it did, but apparently he didn’t love my tone. “Maybe next time you need to be serviced, I shouldn’t be so quick to come over here.”
“Whatever.”
He made a pissed-off noise and stared at me for a minute. Maybe he was waiting for me to apologize and drop to my knees.
When that didn’t happen, he turned and walked right out the door, with a grumbled, “Call me when you’re off your rag.”
Dick.
I locked the door behind him.
I really, really needed to break up with him. It was inevitable, right?
All we did was irritate the fuck out of each other… and fuck.
So why hadn’t I done it yet?
Jude.
Jesus. What was that man becoming—my reason for everything?
I shook it off and went to get changed into an outfit worthy of a DJ Summer show. Black leather leggings and suede booties, a flowy, shimmery sleeveless top.
I fixed my hair and makeup.
Then I made a few calls. Telling myself all the while that I could do this. I would pull this off. I would book the most killer Dirty show and New Year’s Eve party known to man.
It was about my career.
It had nothing at all to do with my fucked up feelings for Jude Grayson.
When I arrived at the Artemis, DJ Summer was deep into her set.
The club was at capacity and the party was going strong. Summer wasn’t headlining this show, but she was definitely holding her own, pumping up the crowd for the visiting headliner.
She was onstage above the crowd, wearing a black bodysuit with knee-high faux fur boots and a wicked crown of skulls, fur and twisted horns. She was playing a killer Florence + the Machine remix with a lively, sexy beat, and the crowd was right into it.
I slipped into the dark alongside the dance floor, though most of the club was pretty much one giant dance floor. I stood back and just took in the show, though I couldn’t resist dancing a little right on the spot. The groove of Summer’s music was just too damn infectious.
And as I watched her do her thing, if I squinted just enough, I could almost imagine it was me up there—if, you know, I was a shit-hot DJ. Summer was a couple inches shorter than me but, like me, she had dark hair and a figure that probably got her a lot of attention from men.
That was where the similarities between us pretty much ended, though.
Frankly, I was born white
trash. Literally in a trailer park. I had to claw my way up through the world. Summer, on the other hand, was from Elle’s walk of life. Which meant well-educated, well-traveled, and she grew up with money.
Where Summer’s confidence probably came from her total ability to win at life—and probably from a young age—mine came from sheer force of will. An unwillingness to be pushed down, pushed aside.
As she finished her last song and the crowd screamed their appreciation, I could feel her affect on the audience. I could feel that DJ Summer was on a mission to make people feel good around her, feel good about themselves—and tonight, she was definitely succeeding. It was this talent that made her queen of the local party scene; a fucking killer DJ.
Me? I’d never concerned myself overmuch with how other people felt. Their feelings, their business.
Yes, I knew how to charm, how to seduce, and how to negotiate. Key factors in my line of work—both of them—and in my relationships with men. I knew how to get what I wanted, most of the time.
Jude Grayson aside.
I had a feeling, though, that Summer Avery Sorensen got what she wanted more.
By now, I’d Googled her. And Wiki’d her, and social media stalked her. I knew her personal stats, her fondness for exotic cars and overpriced designer handbags, her history of relationships with strapping, beautiful dudes. On paper, DJ Summer and I had little in common—but I could definitely get in bed with her taste in men.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t here to talk about boys.
Even if the most beautiful one she’d probably ever dated—in my humble opinion—was suddenly standing right in front of me.
“Ash,” I said, startled. He’d kinda loomed out of nowhere. And he was definitely looking a little… unsteady on his feet.
Drunk. He looked drunk.
But yes, beautiful. With ink-black hair and blue eyes, Ashley Player was all edgy rock star charisma and couldn’t-give-a-fuck attitude in his tight black jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt that said: Who needs cash when you got a dick like… with an arrow, pointing straight down.
I kinda froze as he put his finger under my chin, leaned in… and kissed the tip of my nose.
“Roni,” he said.
Then he pulled me in for a hug, just like that. Like he’d never come this close to screwing me… and then totally bailed on my ass. Leaving me literally naked in the night, at Jesse and Katie’s wedding.
I’d run into Ash a few times since then, but we’d really never talked much since that night. I wasn’t exactly crushed about it. Honestly, I figured he’d circle back around, eventually. Single dudes on the prowl pretty much always did. I had a Tinder account full of messages from horny dudes to prove it.
I never took those messages personally, just like I wouldn’t take this personally.
For one thing, Ash was very obviously inebriated. For another, I was going to assume that this—the nose kiss and the hug—had at least something to do with his best friend, Dylan, falling in love with Amber, a girl they’d both been sleeping with; Jessa had recently filled me in on the latest Dirty drama and how MIA Ash had been lately.
Even so, when he hugged me, I hugged him back. His body definitely pressed up against mine a little longer and a little harder than it needed to, but I couldn’t say I minded, exactly. Ash was hot.
But I did not like men who played games.
Especially games that I couldn’t win.
I extracted myself from his arms, and after he’d told me how good I looked and gushed over me a bit in that way he did—kinda absently, like he was just putting the flattery out there and not really caring one way or another if I flattered him back—I let him know I was here to see Summer.
I really didn’t want to miss my chance to talk to her. The next DJ had already taken over, and for all I knew she’d beelined straight out the back door the second she went offstage.
“Summer?” Ash said, both eyebrows raising.
Then he took my hand, sliding his fingers through mine and yanking me through the crowd. He pulled me right past the bouncer at the entrance to a hall that shot behind the stage, a hall that was lined with people talking and drinking, some with staff shirts and others with that I’m with the DJ air about them.
Ash knocked on a door along the hall, then tried the knob. He opened the door, telling some dude who was standing next to it and staring at us, “Five minutes,” then yanked me inside. “Suh-uh-uh-mmerrrrrr,” he sang out in his husky lead singer’s voice, even though Summer was right in front of us, standing alone in the small room.
She was taking off her crazy horned crown thing and turned to us, shaking out her thick, dark hair. “Roni,” she greeted me, pulling me in for a quick cheek kiss, which I returned.
“Hey, Summer…”
Before I could say more, Ash pulled Summer to him, his arm locked around her waist—pretty much like he’d done to me. He kissed her on the neck. Loudly. Repeatedly.
She shoved him off. Playfully—sort of.
“I found this lost kitten looking for you,” he told her, looking me over. He seemed to like the leather leggings.
Summer cocked an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, Ash is really good at rounding up the lost pussy,” she informed me, dryly. Then she told him, “Go herd yourself some kittens.”
Ash did an obedient little salute thing, then stumbled out.
Summer shouted after him, not so playfully, “And stop drinking!”
When he’d gone and shut the door, we looked at each other. I thought, for a moment, that she might say something about him. Something apologetic? Sympathetic? Something clever to gloss over the slight discomfort in the room.
Or maybe it was just me.
I knew Ash was Summer’s ex-boyfriend. Clearly, he was sloppy drunk tonight. And who the hell knew how she felt about him or what she thought I might’ve been doing with him before we’d walked in here? Not me. But I was here to win her over, and now I wasn’t so sure if Ash getting me in to see her was a smart move or not.
Though if he hadn’t, I wasn’t sure I would’ve even gotten in. There were a hell of a lot of people outside that door, waiting to party with DJ Summer. Many of them men who could offer her way more interesting companionship tonight than I could.
I was about to say something, maybe open with a compliment—but she spoke first.
“Welcome to my queendom,” she said, “and by that, I mean my mess.” She gestured around at her “dressing room,” which was, like the rooms reserved for talent in the backs of many clubs, pretty much as she’d called it—a mess. Random, somewhat broken furniture had been jammed awkwardly around a giant wall mirror and a makeup counter, where enough makeup for a dozen women had been laid out.
“Great show,” I said. “They should’ve had you play longer.”
“They should always have me play longer,” she said, as she sat down to slip off her furry boots. “These things are hot as shit.” She sighed with relief as she kicked them aside. She had that mildly dazed, distracted, exhausted-but-wired look about her that a lot of performers did when they came offstage. Luckily, she didn’t look high, like some DJs did when I spoke to them during or after their sets; I really didn’t want to have this conversation with her while she was less than totally coherent.
“Ah, but they look hot, too,” I said, speaking the truth.
“Thank you.”
“I spoke with the promoter on your New Year’s Eve show,” I informed her, as she slipped on a pair of black leather boots. It was only a white lie; so far, I’d spoken with his assistant. “Sounds like he’s going to let me buy him out. Which means I’m taking over the event, and my plan is to book the other DJs out to other parties in town.”
She glanced up at me. “You want to book me out too?”
“No,” I said, kinda surprised she’d even think I wanted to. Since meeting her, I’d been keeping in touch, dropping in at her shows, and she knew I was hoping to put a show together for her sometime next year; I’d made that pretty clea
r. The only issue was I hadn’t yet worked with a DJ of Summer’s calibre, and she knew that, too.
In short, I hadn’t won her over yet.
But I’d never really had anything to offer her before.
“You’re still playing,” I told her. “I hope.”
She considered that as she got to her feet, then turned toward the mirror and started digging through her makeup. “What other DJs are you bringing in?”
“None. I’m bringing Dirty.”
She stopped digging and looked at me in the mirror. “I’ve heard better ideas.”
“You’ve played with them before,” I pointed out.
“I can’t open for Dirty with this kind of notice, hon,” she told me, as she blotted the shine from her face with a tissue. “It takes preparation. I’m booked solid over the holidays, and I’m sure they’re busy. This idea needs proper planning and promotion.”
“Which is what I’m here for.”
Summer shook her head as she pulled out a powder compact and a fluffy brush. “The crowd will be wrong. The vibe will be wrong. You put me in front of a Dirty crowd without the proper promotion, it’ll be a blood bath. For me.” She tapped some powder onto her brush and set to work touching up her face. “You bring Dirty into a DJ Summer party? Could go sideways for Dirty, which is not what they deserve. You need the right audience. You need time and you need to finesse these things.” She stood back from the mirror and checked her face, smoothed her hair a bit with her fingers, not looking at me. “We took half a year planning the first show I ever played with them, where we did a partial set together, and that was at a festival, electronic music and rock. Totally mixed crowd. Open crowd. You can’t just throw together an intimate New Year’s Eve party with me opening for Dirty and expect it to work.”
“It will work.”
She met my eyes in the mirror, looking incredibly doubtful. “And you know this because…?”
“Because you won’t be opening for them.”
She turned to face me. She seemed to gauge that I was serious, and made a sound akin to a laugh. “You’re gonna ask Dirty to open for me? You’ve got a solid steel pussy, hon.” She turned back to her reflection. “Brody is gonna eat you for a nice, light snack and leave your pretty bones by the side of the road.”
Dirty Like Jude: A Dirty Rockstar Romance (Dirty, Book 5) Page 6
